Illusion
by VenomSnowStorm
Summary: Jack/Ianto. Repetition, repetition, repetition; Ianto seems to be wearing away but malignant forces prevent his team from helping.


**Disclaimer:**

**I would like to thank wild4rose7cool for beta reading this story thoroughly and helping it become the story that it is now. You should definitely go check out her fanfic account. **

**I don't own Torchwood!**

I was always in the background. Dark grey concrete, vines of tangled wires, blue-tinted light reflected in shiny silver sheets of metal and me. These were the basic elements of the Torchwood hub. Making coffee and office paperwork were my supposed niches. Repetition was inevitable, the same job day after day, just like the slabs of concrete wall that surrounded us. Change was rare and slow in coming. Funny when the world around us changed so rapidly.

It felt like opportunity when alien's appeared, heart racing, adrenaline making me tremble like an animal finding freedom. It felt so good it was problematic; I didn't always go, maybe because I would have just been dead weight. On those days, while my companions faced death-defying missions I stayed back, wishing but also not wishing that they would need my help. Most of the time they got back, got to work without batting an eye at me. When they did need my help missions were both the most frightening and best times of my life.

Gwen, Owen, Tosh, Jack. Where did Ianto fall in this little group? They by no means appreciated the work I put into the tasks that made their lives a little easier. Repitition, repetition, repetition. The dull grey walls bathed in inky blue light always surrounded me. Cleaning, food, the necessities. I tried hard, but acknowledgement was small and came far between. I never said anything, so whose fault was it really? A job at Torchwood may slowly sap away the humanity in a person but how fast is slow is a question I have never truly begun to comprehend.

Owen had taken to provoking me. He was generally my least favourite. Always the sarcastic bugger. Opening the time rift certainly hadn't sweetened our relationship. I have quirks with all the team members I suppose, private labels that characterize them in my mind. Gwen, tooth-gap and all was always too courageous, meddling in affairs she lacked understanding in. Always trying to be a hero. Jack's love perhaps the only place she couldn't find with her lion's heart. Tosh was a whole different story, more out of place but comfortable with the great talents she held so carefully in her hands. She was always kind to me though I had realized that she had stopped noticing most people that weren't involved with Owen. The soft love prickling her lovely eyes was enchanting and very beautiful. Owen never noticed her. Tosh never gave up.

Time is a strange phenomenon. Seconds are seconds, minutes are minutes, hours are hours and days are days but they can be weaved and knotted much like loose string. The days wore on and on. Time wasn't in my control. But over time my life progressed. Did that mean my life was that of times or of my own will? Slowly I was losing weight, wore dark bags beneath my eyes. It wasn't an extreme surprise that Gwen and Owen hadn't noticed; this job doesn't sit back and let you take ten coffee breaks a day. Tosh and Jack was a little more difficult, like chilled water trickling down my back. There was nothing malicious about it, no one laughing at me, taunting me (apart from Owen's occasional remarks), just an uncomfortable silence. I quickly came to terms with the ignorance. Ignorance is not bliss, but people often mistake that it is.

Torchwood is a job where the members must elicit minor details from missions to help fight aliens. Minor details are crucial. The team failing to notice the obvious was always humorous. The irony did not escape me that I was the obvious. Life sends us on strange paths and this time was no exception. Perhaps everything happens for a reason, but usually it was just plain dumb luck. Did I find Torchwood for a reason or was it luck? I will never know. I don't want to know.

It's clear that Jack cares for us all very dearly. Jack is strong, the strongest person in existence in fact. Living forever could have constricted his heart, turned him hard and impenetrable. He still lives every day like it's worth something. If there is hope in the universe, certainly at least some of it must be to do with Captain Jack Harkness. And somehow I became perhaps a small stitch in the tapestry of his life. I wouldn't believe that our nights together were all based on lust. As open as Jack is with his bed we had connected in some way, separate from the smell of sex. We had yet to go on the date he had so casually suggested the night John arrived. For me it was difficult to accept that Jack had not commented on the subtle changes I acquired. A man of perfection did not truly exist after all. Jack did not comment. Jack was not perfect.

Jack usually held a grin on his face and I wondered if he ever got sad too. I knew he did. Maybe I just didn't remember it sometimes. Still, I worked harder. There are moments where you find clarity in your life and I had one when I caught my reflection in the glow of a computer screen. The chiseled blackened bags under my eyes and thinning worn away cheeks were all perfectly natural in that moment. I was subtly performing worse when I was called in missions, coffee tasted strange on my tongue. Every day started to pass in a blur. I half-heartedly did my duties on auto-pilot. I started to reminisce about my life. Moments that defined me, what did I achieve in previous time? London Torchwood, meeting Lisa, falling for Lisa, seeing her become a monster, seeing her die.

Dull sorrow, like a blunt knife wedged into a wound to prolong the injury crept up my spine. It started being a distant memory as I started things with Jack. If I wished to erase my memory, I couldn't imagine how Jack coped with the deaths of a thousand lost lovers.

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"Ianto has been acting a bit odd lately" Tosh murmured quietly holding a cooling cup of coffee around their meeting table. Coffee signaled the start of the meeting but something was off about it today.

"Nah, probably being just a little dramatic" Owen yawned, carefully stretching and folding back in again, "Can't a man have an off day?"

"No Tosh…" Gwen commented slowly straightening up in her seat "I think you may be right, he has been a little off lately. Remember that day he made horrid coffee? Ianto _never_ makes coffee like that"

"That coffee nearly bloody killed me" Owen grumbled. He sighed loudly. "Look he's fine, he's a grown man, Ianto doesn't need a babysitter… but I guess it couldn't hurt to keep an eye out for him, alright?"

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There was something morbid about watching my health slowly disintegrate. It was fascinating in a nauseating kind of way. Like a cut that you can't stop squeezing the blood out of, like a scar that wouldn't fade. I was intrigued by our world. It was impossible not to be astonished by all the wonders available to us. Of course the one enigma I most pressingly wanted to solve was the one out of my reach. Jack had yet to comment, add to the conversation I knew my team members already had.

A meeting was starting. I went to take a seat and I glimpsed at Jack's facial expression. He has the type of face you could devote whole subjects, libraries to. It was pretty unreadable, just a passive face, hard to crack open. It was simple and stunning.

"Thank you for joining us Ianto" Jack said, his hands fanning out to pick up a lone piece of paper that had slipped from the stack.

Tosh's poised hand steadily held her pencil, a small scratching noise as she wrote the minutes as the meeting commenced. It was the only sound apart from Jack's voice. If silence was deafening I wondered what I should call whispers. I can't say that the sound of Tosh's scratching pencil filled my head or that Jack's voice clogged me up to the brim. They didn't.

"Now, we all know that….."

I cut these words from my mind. Words were just words. Comprehending the stream of words that Jack was saying was simple. It is astonishing that humans can recognize little drops of words from the rivers of them that flow through society. Something was dragging at me from the edges of my eyes. Words were simple but I didn't understand them.

I was tired. Jack continued to speak. Repetition, repetition, repetition. Cleaning, rounds of coffee, so many reports and sorting so much paperwork. I was uncomfortably aware of the edges of my consciousness. It was as though I had closed my eyes and someone had taken my hand and moved it along the lines of a blanket I was sitting on, making me realize where my consciousness ended and my unconsciousness began. Repetition, repetition, repetition.

"Ianto?"

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Jack was in the middle of his speech when his attention was suddenly fixated on Ianto.

The man was pale, pupils dilated, slumping backwards into his chair, on the verge of unconsciousness. Ignoring the others commotion, Jack checked Ianto's pulse, held his face firmly in his hands assessing responsiveness. There was collective relief when he found an erratic yet firm pulse. Too often there wasn't a pulse to find. Jack had seen thousands of deaths, he had lost count. He had seen the worst possible deaths, had seen children screaming, women crying, men helpless as they were swept from the world. He had never gotten used to death. He couldn't. There was nothing in death.

He tightened his grip on Ianto. What was happening?

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"Owen, help me bring Ianto to the autopsy table, he needs medical attention"

Owen hurriedly obliged, between them carrying Ianto to the table and placing him down gently. Owen pulled over his small table of tools and started working on a diagnostic while Tosh and Gwen looked up at Jack. The question in their eyes was clear. What the hell was going on? Jack shook his head. A plethora of ideas filtered through his mind; alien parasite, human disease, device implantation, mutation? They had no idea how and why Ianto had fainted. Ambiguity was perhaps the scariest creature here.

"Alright" Owen said as he studied the blood on a smear under the microscope, "here's what I have for you".

He sat up and wiped his glasses.

"A preliminary scan shows he is malnourished, sleep-deprived and dehydrated; _really_ malnourished, sleep-deprived and dehydrated".

The doctor paused glancing at his computer screen.

"… and there is the possibility of alien parasite infection."

There was a moment of stillness. It was strange that in the middle of hell there was sometimes a piece of serene calmness, like there was nothing left that could go wrong and so it wasn't worth crying over. Like all the problems cancelled each other out before they were all blown away. Jack didn't know how to take this news.

"So what does that mean? Does it mean he's going to be ok? What do we do now?" Gwen asked, looking by default from Owen to Jack.

Jack was their leader. Jack always had a solution. Jack the brave, Jack the strong, Jack the proud…

Another moment's stillness.

"We wait" Jack said finally, "until we know what we're facing".

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While Owen scurried around, doing this and that, scanning, studying, writing, observing, I ordered the team to take turns watching over Ianto. When Gwen quietly handed him over to me I sat holding his limp hand and analyzing his face. Ianto had secrets, everyone did. Secrets were simple conundrums. Secrets were complex mazes. There was the secret and then the reason behind the secret and the behaviour that lead to the reason behind the secret. I have more secrets than anyone. Did that make me simple or complex?

Was the reason Ianto was like this because I just hadn't looked closely enough? Torchwood was hectic; the hazard of getting lost in the job could be just as lethal as battling aliens or Weevils. Was I too preoccupied in my own self and the other members who went on more missions? But that wasn't right either. Ianto was independent, strong, and resilient. He didn't need some simpering lover hovering over him like a lost puppy. A distasteful chewing at the bottom of my gut told me that whatever it was, Ianto needed help in this situation. The question was how were we supposed to give it to him?

"How long has he been malnourished and dehydrated for?" I asked, needing to know the answer.

Owen sighed, not looking up from his work.

"Thought you would never ask. A long time, actually. Going on weeks".

I watched Ianto on the autopsy table, his skin chalky. I strengthened the grip of my hand on his. There were massive bags under his eyes, he looked much skinnier. Wouldn't I have seen it when we were having sex at least?

"How could no one have noticed?" I pondered out loud, my voice taking a sharp edge to it, "If he was like this for weeks, months even!"

Sex, it was all humans really cared about after all wasn't it? The point of life was to reproduce. It was an amazing feeling. But then it was more than that. A lifetime of clichés applied to sex. I'm open with my bed and my heart. It makes me more vulnerable to the world, but also stronger. With Ianto I wasn't sure which one was winning out at the moment. But then again that was humans for you, always sitting on the fence with emotions. Sex without emotions was just sex but sex with emotions was also just sex.

"Cloaking device could have stopped us from seeing his condition?" Owen suggested, "Ask Tosh"

While Owen continued to examine Ianto I stood, deciding I wasn't doing much help here. I kissed him briefly on the forehead. I knew the others pictured me as a strong, stoic leader and my past is a mystery to them. How can I explain my past when I don't understand it myself?

I gazed over at Tosh and Gwen. They both stood uncharacteristically silent, watching Owen, the seriousness of what had happened to Ianto not passing them by. Tosh had eyes brimmed with a sore redness. I watched as she clenched her fists determinedly and knew that she would do something about this. She always was a responsible adult, she was intuitive and logical. She was isolated and she was special. She just needed someone to tell her so. We locked eyes and she understood, striding off to her desk to start running some diagnostics.

Gwen's eyes were on me and I nodded briefly at her anxious gaze. Gwen was stubborn, a tough one to crack. Her gaze lingered on me a second too long but was always gone the moment I glanced back. Gwen was difficult to predict, it was hard to know when she would be compliant and when her sense of morality would rebel against what needed to be done. It was rare that people felt pure emotions that were not tangled together. I had the feeling that some of Gwen's emotions were more tangled than any of us realized. Gwen wore her heart in her eyes. I chose to ignore what I saw when I saw myself reflected there. It was cruelty to be kind. I was sorry I couldn't give her what she needed.

"How long before Ianto wakes up?" I asked Owen, as the doctor sent files through to Tosh in the other room.

"Probably a few hours if we're lucky", he shrugged. "He'll need some supervision throughout the time. I'll have him on a drip to nourish him but I'm almost certain he has an alien parasite in his bloodstream"

Owen got up and patted Jack on the shoulder.

"You'll be up to that right?"

"Of course, it's Ianto" I answered. "Let me know when he wakes up".

Neither of them moved. I cleared my throat.

"Errm right" Owen muttered gathering up some equipment to leave, "I'll give you two a moment then will I?"

I nodded with a small smirk.

"Would probably be for the best"

Owen strode past him towards the door and stopped.

"He will be ok Jack" the doctor said seriously watching the smirk falter off my face. He left without another word.

I heard him ask the others if they wanted to go out for some pizza, which they readily said yes to.

"You know", I started casually sitting back down and gripping Ianto's cold hands, "when I said I would be the end of your world on Saturday night, I didn't mean it quite so literally"

The novelty of the words wore off quickly and my grin was short-lived. Ianto was so plain lysing on the sheets. He was extraordinary. Ianto deserved the world. He had seen hardships, heartbreak and somehow worked through it. He had survived the death of Lisa through his own iron-will not to fall into despair. I would fix the damage that had been dealt. I would fix those wounds. I would go out on a date with him. A strange notion seeing as we already knew each other's faces at precise moments during shags, but then again the 21st century was different. I promised quietly to him that we would do these things when he got better. Life was unbelievably fragile. I had long forgotten how normal people coped with only having one life. I wasn't about to remember it now.

Quietly I smoothed back Ianto's hair. If I had learned anything it was how to be patient with a million years of my life still left to live.

So the hours went by and Owen returned. He seemed to be convinced that he had narrowed down the parasite to three species. All three having very different outcomes for Ianto when he woke up. He would do anything in his power to make Ianto feel better but ultimately it came down to chance.

"Sometimes life is just shit" he rumbled.

I crossed my arms, frowning at him.

The hour finally came sometime deep in the belly of night. Owen and I were the only ones left at the hub; I had sent Gwen and Tosh home. They were exhausted, we all were but I still had a little chivalry left in me. Even in all his womanizing Owen's stance showed me he agreed with my sentiment.

"W-What..?" the unmistakable voice of Ianto said at some ungodly hour. I quickly went to his side and carefully rubbed my thumb over his cheek.

"Shhh…You're in the hub Ianto, completely safe".

Ianto's eyes flickered open.

"Owen", I shouted at the top of my voice, "Ianto is awake"

Footsteps approached and Owen burst in looking rumpled and disoriented. Ianto gasped and convulsed, his pupils dilating his eyes black.

"Water" the man croaked clawing at the air.

His face twisted.

"Owen what's happening?" I called urgently as Owen dashed over reading the flashing machinery.

I grabbed a bottle of water and held it to Ianto's mouth and he accepted it like a dying man, sucking it down, the entire bottle in less than ten seconds. I stared, bewildered.

"Thank you", he rasped sounding like he had just swallowed a mouth of sand instead of water, "more?"

I raised an eyebrow. He began thrashing again. He parted his mouth desperately to let the water flow down his seemingly parched throat.

"Any suggestions, Owen?"

Ianto's eyes twinkled, energy slowly seeping in. I watched as a smile grew plastered onto Ianto's face. It was malignant. The man's hands shot out and grasped the sides of the autopsy table.

I grabbed his wrists, pinning him there, frowning.

"Why haven't you been eating, drinking or sleeping?"

Ianto appeared to choke as he reacted to the sudden question.

"U-u-u-umm well I've just been a little preoccupied with work is all" he replied face muscles contorting.

Ianto's chest began heaving. His body squirmed as he fought an internal struggle.

"You're lying. Whoever or whatever you are, leave Ianto _right now_. He's not yours!"

Ianto threw his head back, a guttural scratchy laugh bouncing off the walls. It sounded like his throat was slowly constricting on him.

"_Shit_! Owen what the hell is this thing?"

Owen was rapidly mixing chemicals into a large syringe, with a determinedly panicked look on his face.

"Well Jack" he puffed, sweat beading on his face as he rapidly corked and uncorked bottles, "apparently it's an aquatic parasite that infects the bloodstream…"

In that moment Ianto tried to rear up, his legs flailing and knocking over equipment either side of the table, only stopped by my shear strength pressing him back down again. I hunched over his wailing form, panting.

"By all indications, it's currently trying to find an aquatic environment. If we don't act quickly the parasite could breach Ianto's blood-brain barrier meaning that if it stays in the brain for too long…."

"Understood" I cut him off, "is there any way to fix it?"

Owen winced at another series of crashes as Ianto's legs kicked out, his grating groan filling the room.

"I just need to get the right concentration of compound in this syringe and hope that Ianto isn't too far gone to fight it off"

Ianto's disoriented laughter and wails had turned into what suspiciously sounded like sobs.

"It's a bunch of bullshit that you were too preoccupied with work, you were too busy shagging me parasite" I snarled, "Now _get out_ of Ianto!"

There was an enraged gurgle. I almost felt a streak of hot, blistering rage fill the room as the creature challenged me.

"I started working harder for you, so you would notice me. I was always just second choice for you. There was always Gwen this, John that, well I've had about enough. I thought we might have had something special, but you seem to think otherwise. I tried so hard to impress and get you to notice me. We were really never a couple. You never even took me out on that date you promised. I guess I couldn't expect anything more from the Jack the fucking heartbreaker!"

Sweat was beaded down Ianto's face. He was losing the battle. He was choking from a lack of water. I bared my teeth down at the ugly thing.

"Jack" Owen called desperately, "It must have just breached the blood-brain barrier, it's using memories of Ianto's and warping them into things that can hurt us. We need to get this needle into him _now_!"

But in the moment of distraction Ianto managed to contort his body and thrust me off him. He leapt off the table and my head met the hard tiled wall behind me. Owen took a dive for him but Ianto sprinted full force to the exit, leaping around Owen like he had springs attached to his feet.

He crossed paths with Gwen who was had just been called out by Owen to come and help with the commotion.

"What's going on?" she asked, as Ianto zoomed past, out the door and into the great outdoors, "_Ianto_?"

Gwen glanced towards the other members of the room.

"What's going on?"

I struggled up, dazed and snatched the syringe from Owen, tearing to the entrance.

Adrenaline fuelled, frighteningly exhilarated I ran like I had a weevil chasing me. The funny thing is that in moments like these you realize how promises are just words. It makes you come to terms with the fact that it takes a special kind of person to keep promises, to be loyal, to truly swear to oaths. I had promised Ianto that I would help him_._ If I couldn't find him then that promise was worth nothing. Promises were never really promises, they were just words used for short term gratification. Today would not be that day. I would help him. I had to.

I didn't have to look that far to find Ianto.

Only then did I realize that I had failed to take in the obvious. I only had to look around me; the parasite was getting exactly what it wanted.

It was raining.

_Shit._

There was Ianto, standing eerily still, while a burly, rough looking man towered over him, holding a gun. The gun was pointing in Ianto's direction. A gun that could change it all. Yet the man wasn't firing, wasn't moving, wasn't breathing.

Life and death, death and life. I have no say in these matters. I don't feel that panic, the sheer terror when a gun is pointed in my direction. I can't die.

I saw the masked figure turn the gun towards me and BANG! I fell; hitting the ground hard, watching, a grin on my face as the person faltered and ran, letting Ianto go…

From the ground I lunged.

Flesh scraped against the rough road and Ianto, no longer gasping for breath, surrounded by rain and puddles, struggled hissing at me. We juggled the syringe between us before he hit my arm, letting it bounce just a few lengths out of reach...

I growled and slammed him back onto the ground, crushing my lips against his. I tasted blood. It couldn't end like this.

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_Run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run_…

Every instinct in me told me to get out of there as quickly as possible. I had to run from Jack.

One moment there was this glorious ecstasy pouring from my belly as I ran in the rain, surrounded by water. _Oh god_, the water felt so good. I was swimming in pleasure, hallucinating, fragments of memories filtering over the back of my eyelids, the most pleasurable things, _so much water.._.

Then a masked man on the street had stepped in front of me as I ran, and pointed that gun. Things changed within suddenly. Instead of a kaleidoscope of colours, of sex and chocolate and a million climaxes I saw anger. So much rage and confusion. The death of Lisa…

Time seemed to slow as I watched the gunman taunt me with the power of life and death. I was puffing heavily from the run and every wrong that had ever befallen me was running through my numb brain. I heard him snarling about money. It didn't matter what he wanted. I cried. He froze unable to breathe. Life depended on so many things, a beating heart, working lungs and hemoglobin in the blood to transport oxygen to tissues. It was so simple to crush someone's life, sap their breath from their body. My hands shook. What use was oxygen to a man like this? His life had ended years ago.

Jack came dashing around the corner towards the masked figure, hoping to save me. I flicked my eyes towards my captain. The shot rang out in the night. Jack couldn't die. My thoughts shattered into a million pieces. I didn't register that the person with the gun had fled. The only thing on my mind was Jack. I saw the gaping wound that the bullet had created, blood pouring out of it only for a split second.

I was roughly tackled to the ground. I could feel the skin of my cheek tearing, hands slippery with blood. I opened my mouth to scream silently. I was being forcefully kissed. For a second I lost everything. I couldn't see, couldn't hear. My emotions scattered like a bag of dropped marbles.

Something hit me and I sucked in a desperate lungful and an inhuman scream ruptured from my chest.

There was a syringe sticking out of my arm. Who was I?

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There is a particular painfulness that makes sound seem higher pitched, light brighter and touch more acute. As I tried to remember why this was so I was rudely interrupted.

"So you've finally woken up".

Only one voice had that amount of sexy cockiness in it. My eyes adjusted to the blinding light as I tried to see. My head was pounding. Pain. I was helped to sit up. The previous day's memories seeped slowly into my mind.

"There's a reason why we're not supposed to feel so deeply" Jack stated, catching the look in my eyes, "people can be driven insane, go on rampages, there's no limit. You got just a taste, be thankful I got to you when I did"

As I adjusted I remembered the sensation of unlocked memories, the total hate and the total ecstasy. This all happened just yesterday? Time and age are interwoven phenomenon. Time passes and so people age. There was no battling it, no gun that could reverse it, not even a rift that could undo it. Why did I feel so aged? Age wasn't as complicated as time. People hated age more though.

"How-?"

"The parasite inside you was slowly draining your resources. Just as it could project your own memories to you it could project images to us also. Not strong one's mind you, just enough for us to miss small things…say the bags under your eyes or the change in your weight. Eventually it couldn't drain any more from you unless it wanted to kill you. It was suffocating so it tried to make an escape."

"And the man with the gun?"

Jack's eyes narrowed by the smallest of margins.

"I think it projected the man's greatest fear; that was why he froze"

I nodded carefully.

"Why am I-?"

"Owen made up a chemical solution that could kill the parasite. Along the way it may have also damaged some of your cells. A lot like when you have a cold and your immune system accidently destroys throat cells to kill foreign particles, the chemical Owen created may have acted in the same way. A few days rest and you should be back to normal"

I leaned back, taking it in. Honestly this was hardly the worst thing that had ever happened to me. Jack took the opportunity to lean over. I looked up.

"Jack I-"

"I know"

His eyes sparkled cheekily. The person that had been the reason of so much pain and pleasure in my life briefly kissed me. He had caused me so much pain, but didn't bat an eye when I was in danger, when any of us were in danger. As the kiss ended silently we locked eyes and he smirked. Typical Jack. He guided his hand towards mine and interlocked them strongly and pressed our foreheads together, simply resting there.

"Jack, Ianto….oh" Gwen giggled, walking in and seeing the two of them in an intimate position.

Just like that Torchwood was back to normal again. The whole team came bustling in, Owen taking blood tests, Tosh researching the parasite for any residual effects, Gwen going out onto the streets and searching for any other effected people since they hadn't pinpointed it's origin yet and Jack ordering them all around while keeping an eye on me with the occasional kiss on the cheek. It wasn't normal as much as it was routine.

What did a kiss mean from Captain Jack Harkness? I have my theories. That or Jack was really good at lying in a kiss.

**1 week later**

I watched the stormy rain that bucketed down from the quaint coffee shop I sat in. Slowly I was getting back to a healthy size and getting all the necessary sleep needed (with some help with Jack). The bags under my eyes had gone. Jack had taken me on that date he had promised. I also did less work in the office now and more on missions. Yep, life looked up, even if it probably wouldn't last.

"Coffee?" I offered to Jack.

"Well I could think of other uses for your mouth apart from drinking coffee", Jack replied slyly waggling his eyebrows and flexing his arms as he leaned back in the small coffee shop chair.

One alien or rift could change anything and everything. Life was so unpredictable. But I wasn't complaining.


End file.
